Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

February 25, 2024

“Two years later.” by Julia Kolchinsky DasbachPosted by

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

TWO YEARS LATER.

The last thing I want is another poem
about war and dead children and how
we’ve forgotten their names.
My children are learning to count: bones
 
and wars and dead children and how
many days are left, Now? they ask, now?
My children are learning to count bones—
twenty-seven in the hand, twenty-two in the skull.
 
Many days are left now. They ask, now?
The last thing I want is to imagine them dead,
twenty-seven, twenty-two, their hands, their skulls.
I keep counting to make sure they’re all there.
 
The last thing I want is to imagine the dead
we’ve forgotten. Their names,
I keep counting to make sure. They’re all there.
The last thing I want is another poem.
 

—from Poets Respond
February 25, 2024

__________

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “I’m at a loss for words for the continued violence against Ukraine, my birthplace. And yet, I keep finding more insufficient ones. I keep turning to form to provide some semblance of order amid atrocity that resists sense or comprehension. War analysts thought Kyiv would fall in two days, but February 24th marked two years. Two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion and still, Ukraine remains standing. Two years of fight, resistance, and endurance. If you are able, please consider contributing to an aid organization that helps those who are in Ukraine and refugees trying to flee. I recommend Ukraine TrustChain. An all volunteer-run nonprofit started by Ukrainian immigrants in the U.S., they work with local volunteers on the ground, going directly into areas hard to reach by larger international organizations. TrustChain provides urgent food, medical supplies, and transportation to safer regions. Poetry is often criticized for making nothing happen in the real world, but poetry has raised thousands of dollars for Ukraine. You reading this poem and asking questions about the global violence that continues is the beginning of action.” (web)

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February 26, 2023

“One Year Later” by Julia Kolchinsky DasbachPosted by

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

ONE YEAR LATER

It’s easy to look away from war
when your wallet’s empty and sink is full,
when the land and people aren’t yours,
 
when your children scream for more
of you, when your body’s pulled,
it’s easy to look away from war.
 
The soil across the water to earth’s core
brims blood, but look, the sunflowers still bloom
when the land and people aren’t yours.
 
So, you focus on the daily chores,
dig out a trench of laundry—linens, wools—
it’s easy to look away from war
 
with the dog barking, mailman at the door.
Your children speak a stranger’s tongue at school,
the land and people aren’t yours.
 
How does a house become a shore
no news can reach? Are we that cruel?
Or is it just that easy to look away from war
when the land and people aren’t yours?
 

—from Poets Respond
February 26, 2023

__________

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “It’s the week of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, Feb 21st, is exactly a year since Putin’s heinous speech foreshadowed the invasion with his perversion of history, staking claim to a sovereign nation and people. It’s a year since I coped with the inevitability of this war by transforming his speech into an erasure published here too. The war in my birthplace has continued to be a daily reality of my life, just as it has for most of those in the Ukrainian diaspora. But for many other Americans, this war has moved into the periphery or completely out of view. According to recent polls, a little less than half of Americans support continued military aid, with a third outright against it, and the rest apathetic to US involvement. Inspired by Jehanne Dubrow’s masterful villanelle ‘Civilian,’ from her forthcoming book Civilians, I was moved to write one too. The refrains bouncing and echoing in my head until I got them down on paper. This poem is a plea for continued US—as well as global—support and vigilance. For a refusal to look away from war. For action. And if you are able, please consider contributing to an aid organization that helps those who are in Ukraine and refugees trying to flee. I recommend Ukraine TrustChain. An all volunteer-run nonprofit started by Ukrainian immigrants in the US, they work with local volunteers on the ground, going directly into areas hard to reach by larger international organizations. TrustChain provides urgent food, medical supplies, and transportation to safer regions.” (web)

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December 25, 2022

“The Ukrainian Flag Stares through the Balsam Fir from Larry’s Trees” by Julia Kolchinsky DasbachPosted by

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

THE UKRAINIAN FLAG STARES THROUGH THE BALSAM FIR FROM LARRY’S TREES

just take it he said & I doubted
generosity are you sure? still $30 short
I’ve learned nothing is free
in this country his
white mustache curled
to a smile I’m Larry & this
is the south & these are my trees
how easy to claim what soil gives
to own trees & bodies
to give them away to strangers
so my children can hang
the shatterproof ornaments & ask for more
light while in Ukraine
the bulbs won’t spark the heat
won’t radiate the soil will stay
snow-covered & theirs &
in my house strings & strings
of electric rainbow dazzle
trail the evergreen & walls & wind
my children’s small limbs
here in Arkansas it’s barely cold
enough to light a fire
but we can & do with oak
& crabapple we home
its added glow so everything
smells of invited smoke & pine
not invaded smoking sky where
the windows flicker with candlelight
& shellings & tomorrow
I will bake gingerbread & fry
latkes & light the candles
forbidden in my Soviet childhood
tomorrow I will pray
to a god I don’t believe in
for more miracle tomorrow
I will still have been born
from darkness & wick & tonight
when I lift my daughter
to place the silver star on the highest branch
& my American mother-
in-law takes a photo
the only light will be the yellow-
blue horizon of the flag
frozen in the window behind us
 

—from Poets Respond
December 25, 2022

__________

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “The missiles continue to fall on Ukraine. Millions lose power and heat and even water. It is well below freezing all across the country. On Christmas Eve, when many families in the US and around the world gather around a tree decorated by hundreds of lights, in my birthplace, Ukraine, this day will mark ten months of brutal, full-scale war. It is too easy to grow used to the barrage of terrible news, too easy to forget that during this time of celebration, suffering continues. If you are able, consider contributing to an aid organization that helps those who are in Ukraine and refugees trying to flee. I recommend Ukraine TrustChain, an all volunteer-run nonprofit started by Ukrainian immigrants in the US, they work with local volunteers on the ground, going directly into areas hard to reach by larger international organizations. TrustChain provides urgent food, medical supplies, and transportation to safer regions.” (web)

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February 26, 2022

“Mir in Ukraine” by Julia Kolchinsky DasbachPosted by

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

MIR IN UKRAINE

An erasure of “Address by the President of the Russian Federation,”
February 21, 2022, 22:35, The Kremlin, Moscow

                                                mir             in
                                                                  Ukraine

                        is

country
                                                                                                            and after
                                                                                                                        a few

words                         history

                                                                        entirely created
                                                                                                            by Russia
 

severing what is historical
                                                Nobody asked
                                                                        for                                                War

            longed
           
                                                                                                for
                                                            distance

 

                                                                                                found

                        sh ine

 

                                                                                                            Let me repeat

 
                                                                                                            its people
                                                                                                not       a mistake
                                                                                                        admit
them openly and honestly
                                                                                                                        Ukraine
                                                            fully
                                                                                                                                    Ukraine
            call
                                    Ukraine

Go            back to history                                    repeat
                                                                        it was impossible
 

 
                                                any                                                            future

 

 
                        instead
                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                    bodies

            wonder : why

                                                                                    remain

Despite                         injustice
 

Ukraine
                                                                                                declare
                        Ukraine                       
                                                                                                            repeat
                                                                                    Ukraine
            reach             Ukraine
                                                                                                gold
                                                                                                            rope                        
Never
Ukraine             open
                                                            Ukraine
                                                bin d                         this            dictator
                                                            striking                                                Ukraine
                                                                                               

Ukraine
                                                                        I would
                                                            men            d                        memory

generations            Ukraine
           

                        branches

            r                         i v             er s

                        wave

                        burned

But we know

                        Ukraine

                        split                        is
 

                                                water

                                                           
                                                                        air

                                    Black Sea
                        fracture
is
                                                            lack and lost
 

                                                                                    in tatters
Ukraine
            its
            root
carries on

                                                —listen carefully, please—

—from Poets Respond
February 26, 2022

__________

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “Putin’s Feb 21nd speech rewrites history, questioning Ukrainian sovereignty and making false claims legitimizing its always having been a part of Russia. While this colonial narrative is not new, hearing it spoken in my mother tongue—Russian—while being myself born in Dnipro, Ukraine, and then reading and thinking through it in English, has carried a particular sting and anxiety in the days that followed. I coped by taking on an erasure of all 11-pages of his drivel in order to give back some of the agency and voice I felt were taken from my birthplace and its people in Putin’s twisted version of history and present moment. But today, thousands of miles away, safe behind a screen, as my birthplace is invaded, I have no words for the pain and paralysis I feel. I am holding my kin on this soil close and wishing those friends abroad on Ukrainian chernozem safety. War has begun, and I am terrified for what tomorrow will bring. I emigrated from Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when I was six years old, in 1993, two years after Ukraine declared her independence from the Soviet Union in a referendum supported by 93% of Ukraine’s citizens. While going through various political regimes, Ukraine has known sovereignty since 1991. I am aching at the threat of its loss. Aching for my birthplace. Her language and culture. Her identity. For her people—my people. For the mothers who first sent their kids to school wearing stickers identifying their blood type in the event of military catastrophe and are now sheltering from missile strikes in basements and subway stations. I am aching for what I cannot change, so the process of poetic erasure of a dictator’s language lets me reclaim some sense of power, for both myself and my reader, if only for a moment, if only in the lyric space of the page, to reach for mir-мир, the word for peace in both Russian and Ukrainian. Even though now, this reaching, this hope has been completely shattered.” (web)

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March 1, 2020

“After the Poetry Reading, We Go to Dinner and Try Not to Talk About Death,” by Julia Kolchinsky DasbachPosted by

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

AFTER THE POETRY READING, WE GO TO DINNER AND TRY NOT TO TALK ABOUT DEATH,

over dessert, sharing
bites—coronas, ‘crowns’
of sugary-proteins—

with near strangers.
All of us
careful

to use share-plates
and dip our spoons in
just the once.

I confess
I’ve just had
the flu, confess

my ear is still clogged
from the flight. I hear
popcorn popping

when I swallow.
The nurse warned
of fluid, warned

it could hurt
to leave
the ground or come

back down. The virus can live
on your clothes
for up to three hours.

How to hug
my children now
when I come home?

Can I exchange
this body
for another

cleaner, less
human mess?
Should I burn

my clothes? Toss them out
or right into the wash
on high or hot or sanitize,

whatever we think kills
what we bring home.
How do we tell

what is enough? Do
enough? I envy the woman
wearing a peach mask

and breathing
only her own, stale carbon.
Four cities. Four airports.

How many hands
have touched
the things I touch?

How many
points of overlap
between us? All

our dirty movements?
Each touch—
unaccountable

risk.
Boarding pass. Baggage
tag. The handle

of my suitcase. Armrests
and tray tables. An elbow.
The half-washed

bar glass, too weak to kill
what it could carry.
How many chance

infections? How
flammable we are.
As easy to move through

as clouds. And just
as transient,
as likely

to spill open.

—from Poets Respond
March 1, 2020

__________

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “I can’t stop washing my hands and thinking about the spread of viral infection as I, like so many other writers, prepare to travel to San Antonio for AWP. I am not worried for myself, but for what I could bring home to my family. Wishing everyone safe travels and hoping that the compulsive hand washing is going to be the next pandemic.” (web)

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December 15, 2019

“To Combat Antisemitism, Write a Villanelle” by Julia Kolchinsky DasbachPosted by

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

TO COMBAT ANTISEMITISM, WRITE A VILLANELLE

We fled the fallen Soviet Union, where nationality
was Jewish on our passports and on skin, fled
to an America we thought was free.

My family was given status: refugee,
so I grew up privileged, a Jew and not a zhid,
grew up with faith and culture, not nationality

aside from USA, a line my mother loved to see
inked on her US passport: welcome home, sang
at the customs’ gates of an America named free

of being defined by skin or blood or body—
How wrong to feel so falsely safe. The Jews shot
inside the Kosher deli, too, thought death by nationality

was past, thought religion was community,
they passed
in an America they thought came free

to all our children, sweet land of liberty,
they teach my son in school: sing out
difference, speak your mother’s native
tongue, this is America, make her free.

—from Poets Respond
December 15, 2019

__________

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “When I don’t know what to do with the weight of current events—news sources stating that the new executive order is going to turn Jewishness from religion to nationality and three victims and a police officer are dead at a targeted shooting inside a Kosher Deli in Jersey—I turn to form. Not because it helps me reign in the chaos and overwhelming emotion, but because within its constrains, I feel it can run more wild. Especially with the villanelle. Every refrain, though seemingly the same, shifts and reframes meaning and music. It feels like one of the only ways to write about the present moment, which keeps feeling like a ghostly specter of history repeating itself, slightly changed and recontextualized. After reading the news Wednesday, all I could do was think about the past I come from and write, repeat myself and keep on writing. I use the term ‘Zhid,’ which is a derogatory, anti-Semitic slur in the Russian language, similar to the word ‘kike.’ It comes from the word for Jew in many Slavic languages like Ukrainian. These aspects of my identity—immigrant, refugee, Jew—I know I have been very privileged to choose when to disclose, unlike most members of my family whose accents give them away. To enforce any one of aspect of identity as what defines us—something this administration has been doing since its onset—is devastating, hurtful, and dangerous. People are continuously getting hurt. And hate is only growing on all sides. So we keep on writing. This poem echoes back to Langston Hughes’ ‘Let America Be America Again’ and hopes, always hopes, we can create a space of love, ‘And make America again!’” (web)

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April 27, 2018

“In Praise of Forgetting” by Julia Kolchinsky DasbachPosted by

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

IN PRAISE OF FORGETTING

Forget to turn off the lights and wash the dishes and empty the tub.

Forget the standing water and let it bring ghosts into the house.

Forget street numbers and front doors and languages of all the ones you’ve lived in before.

Forget the names you gave them once. How they were taken away.

Forget home is where the heart is. The heart can’t beat outside the body.

Forget the body. Theirs. Forget they are made of water. Standing.

Forget to lie down. And forget to sleep. It’s too quiet in these walls.

Forget the four walls and the hands it took to build them.

Forget hands. How it felt to press palm to ribcage to the stove.

Forget to light it.

Forget how the cold and blueless dark makes outlines of ghosts glow a harvest moon.

Forget the moon. It doesn’t belong here. Here ghosts are houses inside of houses.

—from Rattle #59, Spring 2018
Tribute to Immigrant Poets

[download audio]

__________

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “I emigrated from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, as a Jewish refugee when I was six years old. In third grade, I started writing poetry in English as a way of finding my way through a stranger’s language and culture, one that would soon become my home. In the former Soviet Union, my family and I were marked as Jewish. In the United States, we were marked as ‘foreign’ and ‘Russian’ and ‘immigrant.’ In my poems, I get to be the one who marks my own identity. For me, poetry is both an act of nostalgia and future making—a way of reaching back to a birthplace, childhood, and even language that is just out of reach, and at the same time, reaching forward to make room for this past in an uncertain future.” (web)

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